Tech companies, government officials and others vow to fight for net neutrality

Although the FCC just voted to kill Net Neutrality regulations initially put in place back in 2015, the fight is far from over. The 3-2 vote to dismantle Title II internet protections has faced heavy criticism from tech companies and government officials alike, with many calling on congress to overturn the FCC's decision.

Netflix and Google were quick to fire off tweets confirming their support of strong net neutrality protections.

We’re disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement. This is the beginning of a longer legal battle. Netflix stands w/ innovators, large & small, to oppose this misguided FCC order.

New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman was one of the first to release a statement regarding the FCC's decision, informing the public that he will lead a multi-state lawsuit to stop the commission's "illegal rollback" of Net Neutrality regulations. "New Yorkers deserve the right to a free and open Internet," Schneiderman said. "That's why we will sue to stop the FCC's illegal rollback of net neutrality."

Schneiderman has been a defender of Title II net neutrality regulations in the past, recently conducting an investigation into reports of widespread FCC comment fraud - despite the commission's alleged refusal to cooperate in his investigation. His investigation revealed that over two million comments were made using stolen American identities.

"New Yorkers deserve the right to a free and open Internet. That's why we will sue to stop the FCC's illegal rollback of net neutrality."

The American Civil Liberties Union has also come out against the FCC's vote. "The fight now shifts to Congress," ACLU Senior Policy Analyst Jay Stanley said in a statement. "[Pro-network neutrality members] will press to use something called the Congressional Review Act to undo this hasty and misguided action."

Representative of Pennsylvania's 14th Congressional District, Mike Doyle, has announced plans to introduce legislation under this very Act to overturn the FCC's order:

"The Open Internet Order has been effective at preserving a level playing field where consumers have access to the content and services they want – and online businesses are able to compete on the basis of cost and quality of their product rather than how much they can pay Internet Service Providers to block or throttle their competition.

I’ve tried repeatedly to convince Chairman Pai to abandon his plans to dismantle the Open Internet Order – most recently by organizing a letter from 118 Members of Congress urging him not to take this vote today – and now that the FCC has voted to kill Net Neutrality and give ISPs a green light to control access to the Internet, I will introduce legislation under the Congressional Review Act to overturn today’s order and restore Net Neutrality.”

Doyle's statement has already garnered support and promises of co-sponsorship for future legislation from several congressional representatives, including Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur, Representative Betty McCollum and others.

"We’re disappointed in the decision to gut #NetNeutrality protections that ushered in an unprecedented era of innovation, creativity & civic engagement."

This is exactly the sort of doubletalk that gave the anti-neutrality lobby fodder for their FUD campaigns. Neutrality protections have only been around for a very short time - 99% of the innovation that Google speaks of happened well before then. Nevertheless, without net neutrality the big ISPs will start taxing the largest content distributors heavily and freezing out the smaller upstarts. We know the ISPs will do this because they've TOLD US SO repeatedly.

LESS government regulation!
The internet was open, until 2015 when this stupid Obama era regulation came into being.
This just undoes another government regulation.

Click to expand...

Regulation is what the ISP's will have the power to do if NN is no more. This is not the government controlling HOW you use the internet. It does the complete opposite...it makes it a level playing field.

People hear "regulation" and instantly get a sour taste in their mouths. This is not government interference, by any means.

LESS government regulation!
The internet was open, until 2015 when this stupid Obama era regulation came into being.
This just undoes another government regulation.

Click to expand...

Regulation is what the ISP's will have the power to do if NN is no more. This is not the government controlling HOW you use the internet. It does the complete opposite...it makes it a level playing field.

People hear "regulation" and instantly get a sour taste in their mouths. This is not government interference, by any means.

Click to expand...

Government interference is exactly what NN was. Psycros was correct in saying that ISP will start shifting the burden over to the largest content distributors. And you are also correct when saying that ISP’s will start regulating. The whole reason that NN was enacted to begin with was when the internet blew up with content streaming. Netflix and google are the largest internet consumers by far and Netflix being the biggest. When these companies started blowing up local ISP’s bandwidth, they started throttling back their traffic or working out deals to pay for the overwhelming amount of bandwidth requirements. The same thing happens in our local counties in America. We drive on the roads and thus do damage to them. We pay taxes in order to allow the city or county to repair them. This is no different from what the ISP were doing with Netflix and Google, they were trying to recoup costs of having to upgrade infrastructure to maintain quality of service for their customers. Netflix and Google, along with others, started lobbying to have NN passed. Not to protect the “internet” as it was told to the American people, but to force the ISP’s into upgrading their backend without the assistance of tech companies. This was an act to financially protect the tech companies causing all the stress on ISP’s backend’s and to shift the responsibility on to the ISP’s and consumers to pay for it. Less about the actual “free internet” and more about padding the packets of Netflix and Google.

The way you use 'interference' makes it sound like Uncle Sam intervened for his sake. NN was to make sure there was a level playing field because the internet is the largest community entity to exist, and its growing... without NN, its not a level playing field anymore. Your internet is now in the hands of the greediest people/corporations to ever exist, instead of being restricted to treat everyone/everything equally.

This is pretty simple stuff.
As soon as my ISP starts charging me more for the same things I already have access to, we're going to have a F***ing problem.

The way you use 'interference' makes it sound like Uncle Sam intervened for his sake. NN was to make sure there was a level playing field because the internet is the largest community entity to exist, and its growing... without NN, its not a level playing field anymore. Your internet is now in the hands of the greediest people/corporations to ever exist, instead of being restricted to treat everyone/everything equally.

This is pretty simple stuff.
As soon as my ISP starts charging me more for the same things I already have access to, we're going to have a F***ing problem.

Click to expand...

Why is comcast greedy but Google isn't? Google has far more money. Google/Netflix used that money to convince the govt to make it illegal for Comcast to raise prices on them. The rules were rolled back because the govt should not be passing laws that restrict free markets.

This isn't a case of Comcast vs Netflix - it's a case of special treatment for some companies vs no special treatment for anyone. NN was special treatment for Google and Netflix because it protected their use of ISPs lines without fear of price raising. No NN means Comcast and Google are free to work out the deals on their own - the way it's always been done. And don't worry - youtube will still be free. Netflix stock was worth $23 about 5 years ago - today it's $190. They're not poor either.

I like @Brian Duffee 's explanation above. We pay to use roads, we pay to use ATMs, we pay to use more electricity, we pay extra if we use more water - but for some reason people think it's ok for the govt to protect Netflix and Google from having to pay more when they use thousands of times more bandwidth. And you call Comcast greedy? for not wanting to get screwed?

It's recently been found that many of the search algorithms Google uses involve favoritism for ad buyers (duh) that very well might be against NN. I'm not sure they're really all that upset.

LESS government regulation!
The internet was open, until 2015 when this stupid Obama era regulation came into being.
This just undoes another government regulation.

Click to expand...

Regulation is what the ISP's will have the power to do if NN is no more. This is not the government controlling HOW you use the internet. It does the complete opposite...it makes it a level playing field.

People hear "regulation" and instantly get a sour taste in their mouths. This is not government interference, by any means.

Click to expand...

No they won't. The normal FTC rules require ISP to report any throttling, so the govt would know about it and could stop it. The ISPs would also never block content. Blocking any sort of content would be in violation of anti-trust laws.

We're going back to the way the internet was up until 2015 - it'll be fine.

LESS government regulation!
The internet was open, until 2015 when this stupid Obama era regulation came into being.
This just undoes another government regulation.

Click to expand...

The reason why the NN came to light is because back then there was talk in the ISP circle about charging big content and adding a "speed lane". It was not a regulation to screw you but to protect you against the "regulation" the ISP would impose on you which mean you would pay more money.

1) ISPs have engaged in throttling of content providers in the past
2) ISPs have engaged is user data mining and injecting ads in the past
3) ISPs do operate like regional monopolies, blocking access to the poles and making deals with local officials (If google gave on on google fiber because of this, small ISPs have zero chance).
4) A vast majority of Americans (78%) only have a single choice of internet provider is they want broadband internet (25 Mbps or higher). In a capitalist market, prices increase when there is no competition.

and much much more contained in the links above.

People who say "wait and see what happens" expect these companies will not go back to their old habits. Given the current corporate climate in America, who seriously is going to wait and hope these companies play nice? No, now that these companies know they have a friend in the FCC and that they can legally screw their customers over they will only become emboldened.

No they won't. The normal FTC rules require ISP to report any throttling, so the govt would know about it and could stop it. The ISPs would also never block content. Blocking any sort of content would be in violation of anti-trust laws.

We're going back to the way the internet was up until 2015 - it'll be fine.

Click to expand...

I distinctly remember Comcast throttling Netflix before NN came into place.

Comcast originally claimed it was due to their network being overloaded yet within two moths they somehow managed to build out their network? Obvious lie is obvious.

Link to the rule that states they can prevent throttling or GTFO.

Click to expand...

Do you even read other posts? We already talked about this and I linked the story explaining it. Netflix released a new season of something and everyone tried getting it at once. Comcast had them setup with half of their ports allocated to uploaded (like everyone else) but no one ever uploads to Netflix. Comcast changed their configuration for Netflix to speed them up.

This is what caused Comcast to tell Netflix they have to pay up for the special treatment. Netflix went to Congress to get NN passed so they wouldn't have to pay.

Not a lie, not building out their network, and not throttling. I'd go find the story for you, but if you didn't read it last time there's not much point.